You Bore Me
by Joker88
Summary: A boring accountant. Pity they never teach you about the ballistics of a grenade in math class. Our favorite villain and his views on life confessed to a nobody. Yet another Joker 1-shot. R&R please


Terror.

Just undeniable, inescapable fear running through your veins and freezing your thoughts. I feel cold, which is odd, seeing as it's summer in Gotham. I'm thinking as my thoughts whirling around each other and smashing into one another, colliding to create even more panic. I can't concentrate, I have all these images of what I'll look like when this is over.

I have no idea, I'm not equipped with knowledge of grenades. They left it out of the job description.

I mean what will happen if I open my mouth, let the small green bomb slide to the floor? I may be an accountant but give me credit for my imagination.

I can feel the cool hard substance slide on my teeth and I tense. If I close my mouth too hard the grenade will pop out, thanks to the slippery safety clip that is pushing against my upper jaw. My whole being is focused on that small piece of metal. My teeth ache and feel like they'll shatter if I bite down any harder. My hands are tied behind my back with wire, it bites into my flesh and my fingers are going uncomfortably numb. I try to think of who would miss me.

Nobody springs to mind. Well, my cat. Wren. Wife bailed on me a long time ago.

Kids gone to college. Would they miss me? I doubt it. They barely know me. I don't even know where they go to school. Their bitch of a mother made sure of that.

My boss. Maybe, we're not the best of friends but I did have dinner with him and his wife once. But he's across from me, his brains splattered across the floor.

It's a small bank, I don't know why the criminals would even bother. We're in the Narrows, Not many people can bring enough money together to put in a bank. That includes me.

I can see the rolling eyes of my coworkers, they all have the same look on their face, the one that I can see on the stray cats in the street. Dead, terrified, lost, and yet they still have the will to survive.

I need a cigarette. And a drink, make that five drinks. What will happen to my cat when I'm gone? She's barely a kitten. She can't feed herself!

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. The grenade is sliding again, I can't swallow the saliva that is making the explosive so slippery.

I'm sweating, I try to calm down. I wouldn't want to end up like Kress. Heart attack before they had even shoved these bloody hand bombs into our mouths.

I know where the word 'grenade' comes from. The shrapnel inside looks like the pips in a pomegranate.

Now I'm thinking how far that shrapnel will go. Right through my throat down to my toes? Or right up to my brain and down to my heart? Talk about a broken heart.

Damn, I need to think about something else.

There's a clown to my left, leaning on the counter. And the man who has done all this, is sitting on one of the chairs, staring out into space twirling his knife in one hand. The other hand was tapping on the armrest.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Why are they here? There was no one in the vault, no one in the registers. They were waiting for something. Someone.

I have heard of the Batman. A crackpot if you ask me. He undermines every cop and city official in Gotham. If he's so righteous, why does he wear a mask? Why does he not kill the Joker and Two-Face and The Riddler? They'll just escape from that apparently incompetent asylum and kill hundreds of people then just get locked up again. Seems to me if the Bat just killed one person he could save thousands. Jesus, a flying rodent? People are so strange sometimes.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

It's like water dripping down a drain, annoyingly hanging just on the edge of your subconscious. The grenade slipped a little more, and I whimpered.

Tap...

The sound stopped and I heard The Joker's chair scrape forward, but I was too busy trying to keep that piece of plastic depressed. Hot agony seared into my brain. The clip had hit a cavity. I wanted to beat my head against the desk behind me but I couldn't unless I wanted one less head. The pain so great it made my brain beat around my skull in an attempt to break out of the torment. Who knew eating so much sugar could have this effect?

So when a shadow moved over me, I didn't look up. In fact it was a while before I could even remember where I was.

Release, adapt, change. That was what you were supposed to do in situations like this. Release the pain, adapt to the distress, then change your perception of suffering.

So when a makeup smeared hand grabbed me by the collar and hauled me to my feet, it look all my focus to not let go of that grenade.

I whimpered again as the face of nightmares met my gaze. The Joker was choking me, his twisted smile warped in distaste and anger. The grenade clip was at the edge of my teeth, teetering on falling from my mouth. I couldn't breathe.

"I'm usually a nice guy. So you know it when I am angry, and I am _very _angry now. You see…I lost a kind of a bet, and if you don't SHUT UP," He shouted, spitting on my face. "You are going to lose much, _much_ more than…than I lost tonight."

I couldn't help but whimper again as the grenade slid another centimeter out of my mouth. I was going cross eyed, trying to see the grenade and the Joker at the same time.

I froze and I felt the unmistakable prick of a knife at my side. I stopped breathing, trying to keep away from that cold touch.

The Joker let go of me, and shoved the grenade back into my mouth. So far it almost blocked my windpipe. I remained standing until the knife was withdrawn and sagged as the needle-like sting disappeared from my side.

The Joker walked around me, and I shivered not knowing when I would be stabbed or sliced of slit from ear to ear. Abruptly a knife was shoved in front of my face and the Joker appeared at my shoulder.

"You see this knife?" He held it to catch the flickering white shine of the cheap neon lights. It was fairly long, not a flick or a switch blade. Whorls and ragged edges zigzagged up the knife, symmetrical and hypnotizing in it's complicated beauty. "This is a most unusual knife. It took a long time to find." The Joker had calmed down, but his voice still held that contained violence and malevolent evil. "See, it causes almost no damage when it goes in, but when I pull the blade out, it comes with all kinds of interesting things. Some of them can be really important."

The knife caressed my jaw where the grenade was still firmly clamped. My eyes rolled to where the Joker was. He was staring at his knife as if seeing it for the first time, and his eyes held a kind of wild fanatical worship.

The madman seemed to remember where he was and shook his head as if to clear it. "Now, I am a simple man, my methods are direct. So if I have to tell you to _shut up,_ I may just have to abandon my unsophisticated attitude and get a little... lets say _fancy_."

I couldn't nod for fear of losing my nose and I couldn't say anything, so I just stood there.

My little apartment seemed very far away.

I could see his scars clearly from this close. Red lipstick smeared carefully over the mutilated skin. I had heard he did it to himself.

He seemed to know my thoughts and leaned in closer to me. I leaned back, his breath was hot and unpleasant, and his teeth were smeared with red makeup, that from this close up looked like blood.

"I see you're staring at my scars. Wanna know how I got 'em?" I felt that dreadful blade slide into my mouth, It felt like a snake was being pushed into my mouth, it slithered past my teeth and hit the grenade. I whimpered again.

My heart sped up and my ragged breath hitched in my throat. The Joker's excited eyes met my panic stricken ones. Suddenly he frowned. "Are you scared of me?"

I nodded, not knowing what was going on. All I could think was of was that grenade and that carefully positioned knife.

"I'm a nice guy. Can't you people see that I'm only trying to help?" He looked at me with those crazy puppy-dog eyes. "Open your eyes." He glanced around the room, gesturing with his head to the drab surroundings.

"This is order. This is so very... _mundane._" The knife was withdrawn and I sagged as the Joker turned those rabid eyes away from me. "You people, you won't see what's right in front of your face. Your so called laws, your morals, ethics, can't you see they are merely words?"

He turned back to me, a fox pouncing on it's dinner. I flinched at the sudden movement.

"You are all so... So oblivious. So... uninteresting."

I stared at him, my eyes hurt, I could feel them bulging. I was breathing too hard, I felt like I was going to throw up.

I blinked and all of a sudden the knife was back at my side, just below my ribcage.

There was that whisper on the back of my neck. The one that would make a snake cower in it's lair.

"You bore me."


End file.
